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How Good Will The M’s Defense Be?

Last year, we saw the power of what a great defense can do for a team. Led by Death To Flying Things, the M’s ran out an historically great defense, catching everything that was put in play, and leading the league in ERA despite a so-so pitching staff. It is no secret that the M’s have put an emphasis on defensive value, and their off-season acquisition of Casey Kotchman, as well as the re-signing of Jack Wilson, continue to push that trend forward.

A year ago, the Mariners had the best UZR in baseball, at +85.5. Here’s how that broke down by position:

The M’s outfield defense was one of the best of all time. The infield was carried by Beltre/Hannahan, while the other three spots were just about average. The team made upgrading the infield defense a big part of their off-season, so can we expect the team to be even better defensively in 2010?

No. Realistically, we probably can’t even expect them to come close to matching last year’s totals.

We talked about this with regards to Gutierrez at the end of last year, but regression to the mean is a powerful force, and history shows that it is almost impossible to have the kind of season that he just had two years in a row. Gutierrez is a great center fielder, but he’s not a +30 center fielder. They simply can’t expect to get the same kind of value out of his glove as they did a year ago.

It’s not just Gutierrez, either. The Mariners won’t be getting +21 defense from third base again (the dropoff from Beltre to Lopez is going to be hard to watch, honestly), nor should we expect the Bradley/Byrnes platoon to put up anything near a +17 in left field. Here is how I would project the M’s expected defensive value in 2010, position by position:

1B: +5: Garko drags Kotchman down a bit
2B: +5: Figgins will eventually adjust to 2B and play well, but it might take a few months
SS: +5: Wilson’s a really good glove guy, but he doesn’t play 150 games a year.
3B: -5: Lopez will be okay at third, but probably a bit below average.
LF: +5: Bradley’s okay, but nothing special. Byrnes should be pretty decent.
CF: +20: The best projection we can give anyone. +30 won’t happen again.
RF: +10: Ichiro will eventually slow down. I don’t think it’s going to happen this year.

The total for those positions: +45. The Mariners, after adding Kotchman and bringing back Wilson, should be expected to lose nearly 40 runs of defensive value from their 2009 squad. You can quibble with some of the numbers if you want, but you’re not going to be able to come up with a projection much different – maybe you’d have them at +30 or +60 if you’re really optimistic or pessimistic, but it’s going to be in that range.

The M’s are going to be a really good defensive team, but last year, they were historically great. You can’t expect that again, even with a revamped infield. Don’t consider it a letdown if the M’s don’t match last year’s amazing UZR numbers – it’s just not a realistic expectation.

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Comments

48 Responses to “How Good Will The M’s Defense Be?”

msb on
March 24th, 2010 8:09 am

1B: +5: Garko drags Kotchman down a bit

I am curious to see how this position works out– how much Garko ends up playing.

Liam on
March 24th, 2010 8:44 am

Here’s to hoping that Gutierrez can small sample size his way to +30.

SS should be -3.2, not -3.0

joealb1 on
March 24th, 2010 8:49 am

Man, Beltre and DTFT were awesome. I’m sticking with optimistic, Wilson plays 140 and SS puts up +15, Lopez ends up at 0 not -5, Figgins adjust to 2nd better then expected and puts up +10…. I can dream can’t I?

MangoLiger on
March 24th, 2010 8:54 am

it is almost impossible to have the kind of season that he just had two years in a row

Except that he kind of already did it two years in a row…
2008 OF UZR/150 = 26.9 in 938 innings
2009 CF UZR/150 = 27.1 in 1353 innings

Rboyle0628 on
March 24th, 2010 9:09 am

I agree with Dave completely. Although I think Figgins will be a bit better at second than we expect, I think Jack Wilson will have that effect on the whole infield. I think this team is going to be better than last year defensively just not in the same positions.

Of course, as a projection, it’s finding the most likely result for each position. Sure, +45 is likely, and if one guy has a great year it’s just as likely that someone else had a lousy year and we end up back at +45.

Last season does demonstrate, however, that sometimes everything comes together. I’d be interested to see this projection beside a projection from last season. On paper, did we get better or worse?

I thought about linking to Dewan’s piece, but since they don’t actually give you any real information besides their kind of ridiculous team projection, I figured it wasn’t worth it.

It’s worth noting that Catcher ERA is a component of Defensive Runs Saved for catchers. James mentioned last week that they had Rob Johnson as the best defensive catcher in baseball last year. That makes their ratings kind of dubious, I think.

Paul B on
March 24th, 2010 9:46 am

SS: +5: Wilsonâ€™s a really good glove guy, but he doesnâ€™t play 150 games a year.

I think there is a lot of uncertainty in that number.

Looking at Wilson’s history, he’s been great in the field (2005, 2008, and 2009) and ‘meh’ (2006 and 2007).

Which Wilson are you projecting, and for how many games?

When he’s not playing, who are you projecting?

Snuffleupagus on
March 24th, 2010 10:05 am

You shut your mouth.

Shut it right now.

I think left field will be a really interesting position to watch defensively. It seems like we’ll be waiting for an injury to someone (Griffey, Bradley) and if that injury results in a better defender getting more time it might be a good thing.

I don’t know about NO information – the Dewan piece gives Franklin and Wilson’s individual numbers (24 and 22 runs, respectively). They’re 1-2 in all of MLB, by the way.

So Dewan’s quite close to your numbers in CF; it’s SS where you get a massive disconnect. Agreed that Wilson’s projection is probably waaaay overstating Wilson’s playing time. The other big one is probably 2B. I wonder if the ACTA numbers still have Figgins at 3B, where he saved 30 runs last year (according to +/-)?

Dave’s ratings are based on position, not player, and thus it appears the Dewan numbers might be overrating our back-ups. Garko for Kotchman, anyone for Wilson will really drag the numbers down.

LeftField on
March 24th, 2010 10:27 am

Does Sweeny have any realistic chance of making the team over Garko and replacing him as the 1b back up? I haven’t heard a peep about Garko this spring.

Liam on
March 24th, 2010 10:32 am

James mentioned last week that they had Rob Johnson as the best defensive catcher in baseball last year. That makes their ratings kind of dubious, I think.

Tango on Teixeira and UZRMaybe UZR isnâ€™t as high on Teixeira as it should be or as the Fans have him, but itâ€™s one of those misses that we simply have to deal with. It doesnâ€™t invalidate the entire UZR methodology. It is hard to find those guys that are highly or lowly ranked in UZR who donâ€™t deserve to be there. And please, donâ€™t quote 4 months of data. Donâ€™t talk to me unless you are talking about at least two years of data.

coasty141 on
March 24th, 2010 10:32 am

So a +85.5 last year and a projected +45 for this year is equal to 4.5 less wins in 2010 (for defense alone). Is that correct?

So the pitcher is excluded from this rating? Is that because an individual pitcher has a negligible effect on the overall DEF due to lack of opportunities?

nickwest1976 on
March 24th, 2010 11:03 am

I miss Beltre already…really wish he was still a Mariner.

Jack Swan on
March 24th, 2010 11:36 am

First Teixeira and UZR, it is hard for a 1B to have more than an average UZR in a park like Yankee Stadium with so little foul territory. UZR has problems, that is obvious when a guy like Ibanez can suddenly become a great fielder. Ibanez is not a great fielder, Philadelphia has one of the smallest left fields and left field foul territories. Less liners and flys fall in for hits, hence Ibanez looks better than he really is. Also there are many NL parks back East with smaller left fields, like Chicago, DC, etc. These probably benefited Ibanez as well.

I would like to pose a question however, how does Lopez (an average 2B by all acounts) become a below average 3B? What plagued him at second was below average range, that should be helped slightly by playing third. His major positive at second was arm strength, again this is an attribute that should help him at third. I don’t see how we can expect anything but an average defensive season from Lopez this year with an upside of +5.

I’d have to agree with all the other projections except Gutierrez. When projecting I don’t see how he could come out higher than +15 even if his true talent level is +20 or +25. There are so many variables that could affect his numbers from last year. Maybe the infield is way better and he gets less chances out in center maybe the staff has a tendency to produce more ground balls without Washburn.

All in all the conclusion is clear. There is about a one to five percent chance the team puts up the same defensive numbers and even that might be overstated.

Paul B on
March 24th, 2010 11:52 am

Does Sweeny have any realistic chance of making the team over Garko and replacing him as the 1b back up? I havenâ€™t heard a peep about Garko this spring.

Garko has played 8 games at 1B so far this spring.

I don’t think Sweeney has played in the field at all (?)

If he could play at first once in awhile, a NL team might consider him as a pinch hitter.

The sad thing is, in traditional numbers this is going to show up entirely against the pitchers, not the fielders, and the media will be full of stories about what happened to our supposedly great pitching staff? Most Seattle fans still think Beltre was a huge bust, so they’re not going to miss the thing he provided the most of.

diderot on
March 24th, 2010 12:47 pm

Do the projections change if Lopez is back at second and Figgins at third?

nathaniel dawson on
March 24th, 2010 12:50 pm

I think left field will be a really interesting position to watch defensively. It seems like weâ€™ll be waiting for an injury to someone (Griffey, Bradley) and if that injury results in a better defender getting more time it might be a good thing.

It might be…for the defense, at least. It might not end up so good for the offense.

joser on
March 24th, 2010 1:00 pm

Figgins actually had more total UZR than Beltre at 3B last year, but that’s because Beltre was injured (Beltre’s UZR/150 is considerably higher). Lopez is definitely a step back; but Drayer seems to think he’s not as bad as we might expect (based on her eyeballs, which is the only data anyone has at this point). Which isn’t to say he’s good. In reality, we were going to miss Beltre in the field no matter who took over 3B.

And Steve T makes a good point: with Beltre so underrated, and the usual inevitable regression, the likely narrative the mainstream is going to adopt is that the M’s pitching staff isn’t as good as the offseason hype suggested (“1-2 punchless!” ; of course they also have the Lee injury as a caveat). I wouldn’t be surprised if Felix in ’10 has a better FIP but a worse ERA, and we’ll hear people complaining about his contract (or about him “slacking off” because of that contract).

So the pitcher is excluded from this rating? Is that because an individual pitcher has a negligible effect on the overall DEF due to lack of opportunities?

Because the pitcher position as a whole doesn’t field enough batted balls to matter (see the little blue hump in the center here?) and an individual pitcher gets a tiny fraction of that. You could try to add together some kind of defensive value for the pitchers weighted by their IP…only to find it’s lost in the rounding.

James mentioned last week that they had Rob Johnson as the best defensive catcher in baseball last year. That makes their ratings kind of dubious, I think.

Bill James has been saying a lot of dubious things lately, as Jeff points out in his final bullet point here. James seems to love Oakland (and completely forget about Texas) despite admitting that his numbers don’t support it (“Yeah. I don’t understand that. Sometimes, some formulas don’t work.”)

behappy on
March 24th, 2010 1:19 pm

Remember this is just all on paper. Its not like Gutierrez has gotten worse from last year. He is still the best glove CF in the game. The only position we are getting worse at is 3B. Also, the addition of Casey is going to make everyone in the IF a little better.

The defense is the last thing we need to feel bad about right now. The rotation is what is keeping me awake at night. After the King this is what we have right now RRS, Snell, Vargas and French..oh my.

Chris_From_Bothell on
March 24th, 2010 1:35 pm

Even above-average defense will not save this pitching staff, as things are lining up, for the first half of the season. Can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Or specifically, even this admittedly strong defense will not make up for the loss of Cliff Lee for at least one month (plus whatever time it takes for him to get back to 2009 form); will not make up for Vargas standing in for Bedard; will not make Snell and RRS be 7+inning, 3-run-or-less workhorses, etc.

The OBP-focused offense seems to be coming together, should be a vast improvement over last year, and is the right direction. But it’s not going to be able to overcome the semi-regular 4, 5, 6 run clunkers that the back of the rotation will produce in spite of good defense.

RRS has an outside chance of stepping up and contributing well as a temporary #2 in the rotation. But essentially, for the first 2 months or so of the season, the rotation is Felix and a bunch of guys named “uh oh”.

Hey, with the regular off days in the first half of the year (something like one a week through about June), maybe they can get away with a 4-man rotation until Cliff and Erik get in there. Felix should be able to take the extra workload, right?

Liam on
March 24th, 2010 1:46 pm

Jose Lopez should get a very small boost in his UZR at 3B simply because Chone Figgins is no longer playing the position.

It might be both. To my eye, more than 10 wins from defense alone seems like a historic figure. Like, once in a decade or two sort of a figure.

No projection should include a figure like that. You can’t. No projection of Barry Bonds for 2003 would have him hitting 78 HRs, just as no projection has Ryan Howard hitting 50 HRs. The number seems more like an upper bound – like, this is what they’d save if all of the fielders had great years again. If X, regressed to the mean, is still light-years from the mean, then something MAY be wrong.

For a sense of scale, CHONE has the M’s defense at +37.

Marinersmanjk on
March 24th, 2010 2:40 pm

Kind of ironic that we no have a Chone to go along with the CHONE.

joser on
March 24th, 2010 3:18 pm

Kind of ironic that we no have a Chone to go along with the CHONE.

Not really, unless you think the M’s signing Chone Figgins is ironic in itself (in some kind of Morissettian fashion, perhaps). The CHONE projection system was named for him, so it’s going to follow him wherever he goes.

MrZDevotee on
March 24th, 2010 3:23 pm

It’s gonna be hard to NOT keep Sweeney at this point. He may not have played the position this spring, but we know what he offers there– so the time is being given to Kotchman and Garko.

Garko has played 8 games (and is eigth in at bats), but he also is below the Mendoza line, while Sweeney is batting .609 with a slugging percentage of 1.000 (1.625 OPS). Crazy good numbers. (And that’s not even taking into account his “hugs” factor.)

Unless he falls off a cliff, Sweeney’s making the team. But making the team also means he needs to take the field occasionally. Meaning Sweeney is the backup 1B the first month, and then when Hannahan gets back, Lopez and Sweeney will be the reserve 1B’s.

And Garko is traded, released, or sent to Tacoma.

Sweeney will also spend time as the most experienced, highest career batting average, pinch hitter in the league on days he isn’t DH, or the occasional 1B. Depending on the matchups, we’ll have Junior and/or Sweeney, and Byrnes or Bradley as reserve bats on the bench most games. That’s not a bad late innings arsenal, and I don’t think it’s an accident that they all have good OBP too.

MrZDevotee on
March 24th, 2010 3:27 pm

Actually, for MarinersmanJK that was completely ironic– calling it ironic. Since it wasn’t ironic at all.

Y’know, like Alanis Morissette’s song “Isn’t It Ironic” actually wasn’t about irony at all. Which is ironic.

(Oops. I see Joser just mentioned that too.)

behappy on
March 24th, 2010 3:42 pm

Do you really think Sweeney is going to have a 1.625 OPS during the season, dude this is SPRING TRAINING. Which means he is hitting mostly against minor league pitching.

Kazinski on
March 24th, 2010 4:24 pm

Sweeney has about a 1% chance of making the team. Do the roster math after 12 pitchers, 8 regulars (Bradley at LF), backup catcher and Griffey there are three spots left on the roster.

The Mariners have to pick 3 of the players below:

Langerhans
Byrnes
Garko
Sweeney
Jo. Wilson
Tuiasosopo
Other

I don’t think it will be Sweeney. It wouldn’t surprise me if the 3 are Byrnes, Jo. Wilson, and Tuiasosopo. An OF, an IF, and an IF/OF.

I don’t know that we have enough information yet to hand the full-time job to Kotchman.

But yes, I imagine if Kotchman is doing well early in the season, Garko will be one of the first guys without a chair once the music stops.

TerryMc on
March 24th, 2010 6:38 pm

Itâ€™s gonna be hard to NOT keep Sweeney at this point.

I think it will actually be quite simple not to keep Sweeney. I’m 99 percent sure it will play out something like…

-phone rings on Jack Z’s desk-
“Hi Dayton.”
–
“I agree that Sweeney ending his career with your team would make a great storyline for the season.”
–
“Yes, I am looking for another ace to pair with Felix now that Cliff is a bit banged up.”
–
“We would be able to also include a couple C prospects. I think we have a deal.”

…and thus the Felix, Lee, Greinke rotation is born.

MrZDevotee on
March 24th, 2010 6:59 pm

Well, no– of COURSE I don’t think Sweeney is gonna have an OPS of 1.6 during the season. But Garko is facing the same pitching right now, and batting .185 (or so).

To be clear, I’m certainly not a fan of both Griffey and Sweeney making the team (not really a fan of EITHER making the team). And I wasn’t lobbying for Sweeney. I’d prefer we had a better option (even an average option, who can run and field– which we don’t).

But folks who think Sweeney has a 1% chance to make the team are gonna be surprised.

We definitely need a backup 1b with Kotchman getting his first true shot there. And Garko and Sweeney are the candidates. Garko has shown no reason to make the roster at this point, and if he doesn’t, who handles 1b when Kotchman needs a rest?

Lopez could when Hannahan gets back (put Hannahan at 3rd and Lopez at 1st), but until then, I see nothing in Garko that says “made the roster” come opening day. He needs to either hit, or have a glove. Sweeney is better at both.

(I actually like the trade idea, with the bizarrely high numbers he’s putting up, but Sweeney says he’ll retire if he doesn’t make the Mariners opening day roster. So that’s out.)

So given the options I’m thinking Byrnes, Sweeney and Tui will be the choices.

MrZDevotee on
March 24th, 2010 7:11 pm

And we should also remember, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a significant change in the next week or so to the M’s roster, as guys on other teams’ rosters start becoming available when they get released, or traded.

A starting pitcher, and a utility player who can hit for average and run the bases will definitely peak Z’s interest if someone of quality becomes available.

Why put so much weight on 30 at-bats in Spring training? Anything can happen in a small sample size. Sweeney’s performance in the past few seasons is going to be a better predictor of what he will do going forward.

Manager Don Wakamatsu is impressed and says Bradley will be Seattle’s everyday left fielder.

I think it also means Eric Byrnes should be packing his bags. I think Langerhans would get the nod for a backup slot if Byrnes isn’t going to play more than once or twice a week. And if there are any lingering questions about Byrnes health you can’t have him backing up CF. On the other hand Bradley will probably DH against left handers, so you’d want Byrnes(RH) over Langerhans(LF) in the lineup. And that also points to a player that can play OF/IF on the bench for when Bradley DH’s.

DAMellen on
March 24th, 2010 7:23 pm

So then by your estimation, the Lopez-Figgins switch is a net loss, right? Lopez projects to about 0 at second and Figgins should be worth about +10 at third meaning that together, they’d be +10 instead of 0. I guess I trust Wak and Z to have a better idea of what they’re doing then that. I figure if they’re moving Lopez, they must think he can at least put up a 0 and maybe a little more. I guess my estimations would add 5-10 from what you said, but yeah, I see us well short of where we were last year. Unless Michael Saunders gets more time in left than we’re expecting, which should bring our defense up, but probably will cost our offense some runs.

Just swapping UZR projections for Lopez and Figgins is lazy analysis. This move isn’t being made in a vacuum, and it is entirely possible for Lopez to be a poor defender at third and STILL have this change be a net positive.

DAMellen on
March 24th, 2010 8:38 pm

I must’ve missed the other places where you said that. Is there an article I should read explaining that?

Dave, I think you are confusing statistics with reality in this post. We will have a better defense this year because this years players are as a group better than last years players. Franklin Gutierrez’s numbers may regress to the mean, but there is no reason to believe his defensive ability will become less than it was last year.